Women's basketball: CU Buffs beat San Diego State for tourney title

Roberson earns MVP honors

Since Linda Lappe took over as Colorado women's basketball coach two years ago, the Buffs have been looking for a signature win in nonconference play.

Saturday's 67-53 win against San Diego State in the championship game of the Omni Hotels Classic at Coors Events Center may be it.

"I think I'd probably have to agree with that, yeah," Lappe said. "San Diego State is a really good team, they're well-coached, they have great players and we knew it was going to be a hard-fought game. I really enjoyed seeing our team step up to the level that they stepped up to tonight."

Arielle Roberson had 17 points and seven rebounds and became the first CU freshman to earn tournament MVP honors in leading the Buffs (4-0) to their fourth consecutive Omni Hotels Classic title. It's CU's 16th title in the 26-year history of the event.

Jen Reese had 14 points and nine rebounds and Chucky Jeffery had 12 points and six boards for the Buffs.

While San Diego State (3-2) isn't one of the elite powers in the nation, the Aztecs are a perennial winner and have been to the NCAA Tournament in three of the past four seasons. They have received top-25 votes every week this season.

Keep this up and the Buffs might earn a few votes soon.

"It means a lot," said Jeffery, who closed her career with an 8-0 record at the Omni Hotels Classic. "We have a lot of basketball to still be played, but that's going to be monumental for people to look at, because they're going to be in the (NCAA) tournament again. That's a good team and that was a great quality win for us. If we play like that and we continue to play like that, we're going to be a contender ourselves, so I think it was good for us."

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CU overcame a sluggish start to put together an impressive victory. The Buffs, who trailed by as many as nine early in the game, didn't give up the lead during the final 26 minutes.

After closing the first half with four straight points, the Buffs opened the second half with five in a row. SDSU played catch-up the rest of the way and never could get any closer than six points.

"The way we closed out the first half and started the second half I thought was the difference in the game," Lappe said.

Jeffery, who was the tournament MVP in 2010 and 2011, joined Roberson on the all-Tournament team. She averaged 13.0 points and 7.5 rebounds during the weekend and was more than happy to pass on MVP honors to Roberson, who averaged 16.5 points and 7.5 rebounds during the tournament.

"It's a really big honor," said Roberson, who has scored at least 16 points and grabbed at least six rebounds in all four games this year. "I couldn't have done it without my teammates, obviously. We all worked hard and I was really happy for the team. For me to get it was just the icing on the cake."

Early on, it looked like San Diego State might take the title. CU got off to a terrible start, falling behind 10-2 and 14-5. More than six minutes passed before the Buffs grabbed their first rebound.

Prior to Saturday, CU hadn't trailed by more than three points this season, and that was a 3-0 deficit at Missouri-Kansas City.

The Buffs were pleased to get that adversity and battle through it against a physical Aztecs team.

"It showed us who we really are," Roberson said. "We are a tough team and also they're a tough team. Tonight we really pulled it out and for our future games this really sets the tone."

After the Aztecs took their big lead at 14-5, though, the Buffs got in gear. Six different Buffs scored during a 13-2 run that gave the Buffs the lead, 18-16 with 6:06 to play in the half. They never trailed again.

"If you don't play good teams, you don't exactly know where you stand," said Lappe, whose team has now won 17 consecutive regular season non-conference games. "It's going to help us as we get into our conference play and as we get into the tougher part of our non-conference schedule here coming up. It's just going to help us be able to know what level we have to play at game-in and game-out."

Notable

Reese came within one rebound of her second career double-double. ... effery is one of only two two-time MVPs in tournament history (former Buff Jenny Roulier is the other). ... Courtney Clements led the Aztecs with 19 points. ... Saturday's game was the first meeting between these teams since CU beat the Aztecs in the championship game of the 1994 Omni Hotels Classic. ... CU leads the series with the Aztecs, 2-1.